Hydrogen
released from chemical hydride ammonia borane (AB, NH3BH3) can be greatly improved when AB is confined
in metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), showing reduced decomposition
temperature and suppressed unwanted byproducts. However, it is still
debatable whether the mechanism of improved AB dehydrogenation is
due to catalysis or nanosize. In this research, selected MOFs (IRMOF-1,
IRMOF-10, UiO-66, UiO-67, and MIL-53(Al)) were chosen to explore both
catalytic effect of the metal clusters and the manipulation of pore
size for nanoconfinement by variations in ligand length. When AB particle
size was restricted by the controlled micropores of MOFs, we observed
that the decomposition temperature was not correlated to the MOF catalytic
environment, but inversely proportional to the reciprocal of the particle
size. The results correspond well with the derived thermodynamic model
for AB decomposition considering surface tension of nanoparticles.
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